$700 billion rescue plan

Banks...

Moral Hazard

Lender of Last Resort



News Home









































Rolf Englund IntCom internetional


Index - News - 1992 - EMU - Cataclysm - Economics - Wall Street - US Dollar


"Fortis
It is the ninth biggest firm of its type in the world"


Fortis had been due to absorb ABN Amro’s operations next year, but the burden of that deal on the bank’s balance sheet contributed to the crisis of confidence that saw its share price plunge last week.

Fortis
Mr Dierckx admitted that the ABN Amro deal,
which was launched at the height of the credit boom last year,
was a case of ”bad timing”.

FT September 29 2008 10:49

”We thought it was a good strategic decision, but evidently in this environment it was imprudent to continue with the integration of ABN Amro.”

Regeringarna i Belgien, Nederländerna och Luxemburg går in med 11,2 miljarder euro (108,5 miljarder kronor) för att rädda den belgisk-holländska finanskoncernen Fortis, som delvis förstatligas.
DI/TT 2008-09-29 06:26

Det är Belgiens ledande bank och den näst största i Nederländerna, med totalt 85.000 anställda.

Kommentar av Rolf Englund: Kan dom verkligen ha så många anställda?

Aktierna i bank- och försäkringskoncernen Fortis har förlorat mer än en tredjedel av sitt värde under de senaste två veckorna, efter tvivel på dess solvens. Det är Belgiens ledande bank och den näst största i Nederländerna, med totalt 85.000 anställda.

Pengarna är inte bortkastade, försäkrade Nederländernas finansminister Wouter Bos. I utbyte får staten rösträtt och inflytande i banken "vilket uppskattas av kunder och hushåll i dessa osäkra tider".

I uppgörelsen ingår också att Fortis säljer sin nyförvärvade andel i den nederländska banken ABN Amro och att Fortis styrelseordförande Maurice Lippens lämnar sin post.

Samtidigt har det hela helgen pågått förhandlingar om framtiden för det brittiska bolåneinstitutet Bradford & Bingley. Den spanska bankjätten Santander sa natten till måndagen att Bradford & Bingleys kontor och konton kommer att tas över av Abbey, en brittisk bank som ägs av Santander

Full text

Santander will take over the £20bn savings business and branch network of troubled Bradford & Bingley
BBC 28 September 2008


Keystone
The issue at stake this week is whether the banking arm of Fortis will face a run on its deposits in the same way that Northern Rock did in the autumn of 2007.
BBC 28 September 2008

The Dutch-Belgian financial services firm Fortis is very much the keystone of banking in Holland and Belgium.
It's also the ninth biggest firm of its type in the world.

Before steel and chrome became fashionable as construction materials, people used to use bricks. In the building of bridges the brick that sits in the centre of the arc was known as the keystone. If that brick goes, so does the bridge.

So far customers have withdrawn nearly 5bn euros of their money, still only 3% of the bank's total deposits but enough to send a shiver down the spines of European financiers and policy makers. The problems for Fortis started in January this year when it announced it faced around $1.5 bn of losses in the American sub-prime catastrophe.

So far Europe has avoided the calamity of systemic banking breakdown.

Full text


Belgium’s government on Friday scrambled to reassure depositors at Fortis that their savings were safe as the Belgian-Dutch bank appointed a new chief executive as it struggled to dispel rising fears in financial markets about its liquidity.
Financial Times September 26 2008 19:19

“We guarantee that no client, no saver, would be left in the cold,” Didier Reyn ders, Belgium’s finance minister, said after a cabinet meeting.

Full text


Fortis